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The Oxfam-Haiti scandal has confirmed what many of us already knew, or suspected about ‘big charity’: that sometimes money given in good faith due to our innate desire to help other people is sometimes misused and abused.

That sometimes those who are supposed to be helping — trusted in positions of authority and power in doing so — abuse that power and authority.

That huge charitable organizations — such as Oxfam — are also able to breed cultures in which abuse happens — and cover it up.

However, given the current rhetoric, it is clear that the scandal is being ruthlessly exploited by those who have much to gain as they attempt to manufacture public consent for an end to taxpayer’s money being used to fund charity at all.

Think of it like this: the Catholic church was for many centuries — and still is in many parts of the world — entrusted to run large social provisions, such as schools, hospitals, and orphanages.

The endless scandals and abuses involving the Catholic church will not need repeating here (unless you’ve had the privilege of living on the moon for last 40 years, that is.)

However, despite these abuses and scandals, nobody claimed that the Catholic church itself needed abolishing altogether: rather the institution had to be reformed so that the good work they do can continue and the atrocities ceased.

This is how we should really look at the Oxfam scandal — with clarity, honesty and above else: sensibly and practically rather than reactionary and hysterically.

The Haiti scandal then is yet another example of the worst of human behavior and the vulture mindset in-built into some .

Organised, large-scale multi-national charities that resemble brands more than actual charities have always made me feel uneasy at best.

Having volunteered in an Oxfam charity shop many years ago it became apparent to me that even on this small scale, and in minor ways, there are many inbuilt systemic flaws into the entire set-up of big charity.

People would leave bags and bags of clothes and other items at our front door overnight: the donations. We would then have to price up these items and sell them….however, one major thing really troubled me:

We would also have to make sure that nobody would steal any of the stock from the shop — yet the only logical reason to steal from a charity shop would be because you’re in poverty yourself.

Oxfam — we were told — was dedicated to fighting poverty: but we consistently had to stop people in poverty from stealing goods that the shop hadn’t paid a penny for in the first place.

That’s just a small example, but it always struck me as seeming morally wrong — not to mention backwards — worse than this it seemed as if we were doing little to actually help tackle the root causes of poverty that lead to people trying to steal from us in the first place.

I was told to send thieves or potential thieves to clothes banks some three miles away, where they would have to prove their poverty before getting any help — it felt wrong on pretty much every level.

In short: it was depressing as it was ridiculous. But overall, it seemed that at least we were doing something, and hopefully, someone somewhere was actually being helped.

Now, that’s just one small-scale example of how charity is a paradox and filled with uneasy contradictions: on one hand, charity can do a lot of good, on the other it can also be abused.

Another consistently negative aspect is that it can also be used as a way for the very rich to feel morally superior despite their multiplicities of evil.

It should not surprise us that Harvey Weinstein’s initial response to the torrent of rape and sexual harassment allegations was to cite his “work” raising money for a charity that helps women get scholarships at The University of Southern California (USC) — as if he had somehow morally balanced out the universe…..

His response kind of typifies how charity exists within the minds of elites: as if they can do whatever they want, so long as they give just a little back. A bizarre and scary mindset — yet an all too common one.

It should also not surprise us that many charities are patronized by members of the Royal family and other such Oligarchal breeds: by doing this these elites make it seem as if they part of the solution, whilst actually being in great part the core of the problem itself.

Oxfam then, within this context — and this sad reality — has not done anything that unusual or even that scandalous (again on the spectrum).

We should perhaps wonder then exactly why Oxfam is being persecuted in this way? and ask ourselves: what the end game is? Who out of all of this actually benefits? And: who is likely to lose the most?

The outrage about taxpayer’s money and government aid being abused is apparently only used very selectively by the media and the political elite.

The attacks on aid spending are focused solely on charities and Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) rather than the multiplicity of private corporations who receive government aid and often use it to line their own pockets and loot the people of the third world in the process.

Yet, this never seems to make it into the mainstream “debate” over aid spending, which essentially ranges from between these two intensely limited positions:

Left: Aid is good, we need more, we have a duty to the third world, etc…

Right: Aid is a waste of money, help our own first! etc….

As usual, there is little room to debate the actual issues around the subject in question, but rather an incoherent mess of uninformed opinions perpetuated by the MSM and political elites.

Little if any attention is ever paid to where aid goes, who gets it, how it is used, if it is effectively used, if it helps the intended, etc, etc.

No, we don’t have that debate because then we might end up with a public who actually knows something about where their money goes — and they might decide that even if they support the idea of government aid, they don’t support it propping up the profits of Guinness and other large multinationals….

Global Justice Now reports on the way that aid is currently being misused and abused for corporate gain, saying:

Aid isn’t working. Instead of helping to rectify injustice, aid is being used to support multinational corporations, build shopping centres and force poor countries to privatise their public services. Aid urgently needs to stop being a corporate cash cow and start being used as a radical tool for real justice and social change.

In a report in which they highlight who is abusing aid, how and why: the offenses range from tax avoidance, to corporate welfare cheques for massive corporations, to climate change, to increasing poverty, and so on….

The world extracts $192 billion from Africa every year through things like corporate profit, debt repayments and tax evasion – while giving only $30 billion in aid. Even if you add together other inflows of money into Africa, such as loans and private investment, the total flow of money from the world into Africa is still just $134 billion…..

…..So, far from giving African countries a lot of aid, the world takes $58 billion more than it puts in……

….Amid all the self-congratulation, few people question whether this is generous in the first place….

….The language of charity and generosity conceals the fact that UK policy actively contributes to the poverty which aid is supposedly trying to solve.

The business community for this reason, of course, is heavily in favour of government aid.

But any threat to this — such as aid actually going towards a charity that might do some good, that might actually be fighting in some way against their corporate interests, well that, that doesn’t sit quite right with them.

In short: they want their hands on all of the aid money — and charities and NGOs are the major barriers to total domination.

Although the amount of government money that Oxfam recieves is actually miniscule, as the BBC reported:

The charity, which had a total income of £409m last year, received £31.7m from the government in 2016, accounting for about 8% of the charity’s income.

The amount also represents about a quarter of a percent of the government’s annual foreign aid spending.

It is still a considerable threat to corporate domination.

Oxfam is well-known for investigating global inequality and poverty and yes, sometimes actually trying to do something about it….

In other words, they are literally the enemy writ large of many of the corporations.

Oxfam’s anti-neoliberalism sheds light on the global destruction caused by the neoliberal system.

Not to mention the fact they actually do some reporting and work from our many war zones across the world. Yemen, for example, a conflict the state would rather nobody ever speaks about, for fear that the arms industry and our Army might make not maximum bloodsoaked billions out of it.

And we can’t have that now, can we?

So as flawed as Oxfam can be — the latest scandal being just another example — they are at least fighting in the right direction sometimes…..

The MSM didn’t call for an outraged end to the Clinton Foundation, and for donors to stop giving millions of dollars to the Foundation — no, it doesn’t seem to matter at all in this case.

I guess it might have something to do with the fact that the elite donors are usually connected to corporations or leading government figures themselves (usually from tyranical and brutally repressive regimes) — better to leave them to commit their scandals and abuse alone then..(wouldn’t want to bother the little angels now, would we?)

It seems then that the Haiti-Oxfam scandal is clearly being used as a way to manufacture the consent of the public to have government aid taken away from charities and NGOs.

The tactic already appears to be working: Oxfam has already made it clear that they will not be bidding for new contracts until the government has decided they meet “sufficient ethical standards”.

He told the Reuters news agency: “The Oxfam case is the visible part of the iceberg,

“It is not only Oxfam, there are other NGOs (non-governmental organizations) in the same situation, but they hide the information internally.”

MSF said it took reports of staff misconduct seriously and was seeking to clarify questions raised by the president.

In the coming weeks and months, no doubt, the attack against charity will intensify and more and more incoherent and unconstructive outrage will be blasted around by those want to see an end to the government aid spending that might actually go towards helping people who actually need helping….

That is what’s really at stake here, and that’s the debate we should really be having right now.

Thank you for reading! Please share if you agree & share if you don’t agree — explaining why! or just leave a comment, or don’t….

BTW, if anybody in the mainstream media would like to give me some free publicity by labbeling me a ‘conspiracy theorist’ please do so. As you will be aware unlike yourselves I am unable to afford libel proceedings, so please do feel free to make up any shit you want about me and this miniscule website.

And if you’d like to go record for record on my predications and analysis compared to yours, I assure you, I am more than happy to do so anytime.

Some stuff you just couldn’t makeup—The Tories appear to be going for some sort of Guinness world record in this field at the moment…..

Following a mass demo on Saturday against the Tory decimation of our NHS, US President, and professional, racist, angry tangerine, Donald Trump, unleashed this tweet:

The Democrats are pushing for Universal HealthCare while thousands of people are marching in the UK because their U system is going broke and not working. Dems want to greatly raise taxes for really bad and non-personal medical care. No thanks!

However, Trump’s tweet appears to have been rather on the nose for Hunt, who replied, with the following insult to just about everybody involved:

I may disagree with claims made on that march but not ONE of them wants to live in a system where 28m people have no cover. NHS may have challenges but I’m proud to be from the country that invented universal coverage – where all get care no matter the size of their bank balance https://t.co/YJsKBAHsw7

If this is the case, Jeremy, then why exactly are you doing your best to create a US-style healthcare system! A system which is known to be one of the most expensive in the world and provides some of the poorest outcomes?

The “challenges” that Hunt speaks of here, in such an enlightened manner — is the crisis created by him and the Tories!

To add insult to injury Hunt then claims to be “proud to be from the country that invented universal coverage – where all get care no matter the size of their bank balance”.

As if the Tories had anything to do with the establishment of the NHS in the first place!

The NHS has existed since 1948 in the UK after the devastation of the second world war. The British population demanded the right to have access to healthcare which they deserve as human beings which is absolutely affordable when the right political decisions are made.

It has been a shining example to the world of what can be achieved when we put the needs of the collective good over the interests of a few wealthy individuals. Unfortunately, our current government have been persuaded to increasingly adopt policies which represent those of your Government, they have decided to move us more to an American-style system which is widely acknowledged to be one of the most expensive, inefficient and unjust healthcare systems in the world.

This is why our NHS is currently struggling and why leading Professors including Professor Stephen Hawking are bravely battling politicians who wish to turn it into a system like yours.

This is what our demonstration was about on Saturday 3rd Feb and tens of thousands of British people want to show their love for the principles of universal and comprehensive care free at the point of use, paid for through general taxation. We don’t agree with your divisive and incorrect rhetoric. No thanks.

Like this:

The Finsbury Park terror attack shows us how the mainstream media helps to radicalize terrorists. Extreme conspiracy and crazy, hate-filled website, Infowars, has been reported as being a source of Osborne’s radicalisation, however, this conveniently negates the role that mainstream media has clearly played in this attack — surely now it is time for the mainstream media to take some responsibility for the lies they print, and the lying politicians whose hate they amplify in doing so.

Until we demand more from the media — whether left or right — we can go expect more and more suffering, tragedy and horror as innocent people get caught up in the games of the power-elite who always seek to divide us.

Darren Osborne, the terrorist responsible for killing 1 and injuring 9 others victims — mowing them down with a van outside a Mosque in Finsbury Park, has been sentenced to 43 years in prison for his rampage of violence.

His trial has also revealed that he was planning to kill Jeremy Corbyn, Osborne told the court that:

it would be one less terrorist off our streets.

And also referred to Corbyn as:

Mr terrorist sympathiser

Echoing the many lies and smears directed at Corbyn by the right-wing over the last couple of years, and showing that their propaganda can quickly turn into tragedy.

Osborne’s trial has revealed that he was greatly influenced, motivated and radicalized by far-right propaganda — sources such the as conspiracy and extreme right-wing “news” website, Infowars.

Its hosts, the increasingly deranged, Alex Jones and professional shouter, Paul Joseph Watson were named during the trial as sources of radicalisation. It was also revealed that Osborne was in contact with Britain First’s Jayda Fransen and that he had received emails from neo-Nazi, Tommy Robinson.

Paul Joseph Watson’s vile response to the Westminster terror attack.

However, absolutely no attention has been paid to the fact that much of the same kind of extreme right-wing narratives and far-right hate preaching can also be found in the vast majority of mainstream media news — which reached a fever pitch of lies and hatred around the time of the attack in June.

And, of course, absolutely no attention has been paid to the fact that many of these motivating narratives — lies — were spouted by Theresa May and the Tories in a bid to defeat Corbyn during the general election.

Just a few weeks before the attack, on the day of the snap GE The Daily Mail and The Sun proudly displayed these jaw-dropping headlines formed of lies, smear, hatred and utter contempt for humanity itself:

The Sun and Daily Mail, 7 June 2017

These disgraceful headlines followed months and months of targeted attacks on Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, and Diane Abbott in which they had been smeared as being “threats to national security” — a narrative first spouted by former prime minister David Cameron.

The Daily Mail started their campaign of smear on Corbyn long before Infowars

This outrageous lie was also echoed time and time again by Theresa May — especially during the GE.

Following the Manchester terror attack in May last year, with the election campaigns in full swing, Corbyn responded by saying that we need to look at our foreign policy in response to these kinds of attacks by Islamic radicals — making the obvious link between our illegal wars and terrorism, Corbyn said:

Many experts, including professionals in our intelligence and security services have pointed to the connections between wars our government has supported or fought in other countries, such as Libya, and terrorism here at home.

That assessment in no way reduces the guilt of those who attack our children. Those terrorists will forever be reviled and implacably held to account for their actions.

But an informed understanding of the causes of terrorism is an essential part of an effective response that will protect the security of our people, that fights rather than fuels terrorism.

Protecting this country requires us to be both strong against terrorism and strong against the causes of terrorism. The blame is with the terrorists, but if we are to protect our people we must be honest about what threatens our security.

Following this response Labour jumped in the polls, illustrating strong public support for this very elementary points and highlighting the need for a change in foreign policy.

May, however, responded to Corbyn by attempting to twist the narrative — painting Corbyn, yet again, as a threat to national security.

May said:

At the same time, Jeremy Corbyn has said that terror attacks in Britain are our own fault – and he has chosen to do that just a few days after one of the worst terrorist atrocities we have experienced in the United Kingdom.

And:

I want to make one thing very clear to Jeremy Corbyn – and it is that there can never be an excuse for terrorism – there can be no excuse for what happened in Manchester.

May, in a shameless display to pick up votes went on to say:

The choice that people face at the general election has just become starker.

Adding:

It’s a choice between me, working constantly to protect the national interest and to protect our security – and Jeremy Corbyn , who frankly isn’t up to the job.

Osborne, we now know, was on also planning to attack Jeremy Corbyn himself — his “hate letter’ gives a clear insight into what motivated his bloodthirsty rampage.

Transcript of the letter written by Darren Osborne, read out in court by Jonathan Rees QC:

Why are their terrorists on our streets today? Weve had 3 Recent terror attacks, our children splattered against the walls of concerts, part n parcel by all accounts, Mr Sadiq Khan, no it isn’t how you can let this happen, terrorists marching through our capital city, you’re a disgrace where was the public outrage after 1400 of our white british none muslim girls?
Where were you in Rotherham Lily allen Jeremy Corby nowhere to be seen, Just thinking about how many more inbred migrants you can bring into the country, the local harbour map of Rotherham mr Hussain wrote of character Reference For one of the rapists in court, really now, hang on a minute am I missing something here, where was you all, Jez & lil?

Don’t you fancy getting involved in that the only protest within the muslim community were when taxi drivers were asked to put cctv in their cars, seriously your taking the piss, mr Hussain has been promoted.

Don’t people get it, this is happening up and down our Green and pleasant land, Ferrel inbred raping muslim men hunting in packs preying on our children, this will be coming to a town near you soon, it most probably has, get back to the desert, you raping inbred bastards & climb back on ya camels. people don’t be swayed by corbyn & his Free packed lunch, & uni fees think of your childrens future, islams ideology doesn’t belong here & neither does Sharia law.
So mr Sadiq Khan how are you this morning?
I’d imagine your gonna have a hard job keeping your happy go lucky vibrant city in order, Part n parcel of living in a big city, carry on as normal, bk to ya day Jobs, what about you Jez?

Osborne concludes, most tellingly, by calling Corbyn…:

Mr terrorist sympathiser, or should I call you harold, “you dirty old man” put that in ya pipe, & have some sympathy for me, well Folkes gotta go busy day today.
Remember peaceful vigils only & please dont look back in anger, God Save the Queen.

It is clear from Osborne’s letter that he also considered to the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, to be a threat to the country as well (another common theme of right-wing propaganda).

Even the reference to Corbyn as “Harold” from the 1960’s sitcom, Steptoe and Son, calling him a “dirty old man” is a smear job directly lifted from mainstream right-wing media.

Both The Sun and The Daily Mail have repeatedly made this “joke” over the years.

For the record, Harold is the name of the younger Steptoe, not old man Steptoe, whose name is Albert.

The court also released a timeline of Osborne’s internet activity, showing what kind of material he was likely to be looking at and thus what drove this kind of bizarre thinking and extreme hatred: essentially this is a timeline of the radicalization process itself:

Timeline of social media activity linked to Osborne in weeks before attack from Press Association:

May 16, 17, 18
Three episodes of the BBC drama Three Girls are aired.
Osborne’s estranged partner tells the court in a statement that he became “obsessed” with Muslims after watching the programme, which made them both “angry”.
She says it is possible the pair watched the episodes on catch-up at a later date.

May 22
Manchester terror attack.
Some 22 people die after Salman Abedi detonates a bomb at the end of an Ariana Grande concert at the Manchester Arena.

June 3
Osborne receives an email from Twitter inviting him to confirm his account.
7.15pm – Britain First deputy leader Jayda Fransen sends a direct message to Osborne on Twitter. The content of this message is not known.
Late evening – London Bridge terror attack. Eight people die in the knife and van atrocity.

June 4
12.48am–12.49am – A number of web searches for Jayda Fransen carried out on an iPad.
Views a number of tweets from her, including breaking news on London Bridge.
1.11pm–1.24pm – A number of Google searches for Britain First leader Paul Golding carried out on an iPad, followed by further searches for Jayda Fransen and Tommy Robinson, English Defence League founder.
Osborne receives an email welcoming him after joining Twitter.
10.36pm–10.38pm – Google searches for “syria bus bombing”, “manchester bombing”, “lee rigby” and “westminster bombing” carried out on an iPhone.

June 6
3.09pm–3.22pm – A number of Google searches for a variant of “muslim celebrating usis in tunnel” carried out on an iPhone.
Accesses Infowars article: “Proof: Muslims celebrated terror attack in London.”
9.09pm – Google search for “which party want to bring back the death penalty” carried out on an iPhone.

June 7
6.21pm – Google search for “bad things about labour” carried out on an iPhone.
6.22pm – Google search for “mayor of rochdale” and “local MP of Rochdale” carried out on an iPhone.
6.34pm – Google search for “sadiq khan” carried out on an iPhone.

June 9
Screenshot of an image captured on an iPhone of an email, probably a circular, from “Tommy Robinson” to “Darren Osborne”, inviting him to a rally in Manchester.
It says: “What Salman Abedi did is not the beginning and it won’t be the end. There is a nation within a nation forming just beneath the surface of the UK. It is a nation built on hatred, on violence and on Islam.”
The message is signed “Yours Truly, Tommy Robinson.”

June 14
Early hours – Grenfell Tower fire. Some 71 people die in the London tower block blaze.
9.01am–10.23am – A number of Google searches for Tommy Robinson carried out on an iPad.
6.16pm – iPhone screenshot shows a second email from “Tommy Robinson” to “Darren Osborne” on seeking justice for Chelsey Wright, of Sunderland.

June 17
10.10am – Osborne rents a Citroen van from Pontyclun Van Hire in Mid Glamorgan, Wales.
1.23pm–1.30pm – More Google searches for Tommy Robinson carried out on an iPad.
A tweet by Tommy Robinson – “Anger? When a Muslim bombed our kids we were told not to look back in anger?” – is viewed.
1.35pm – Google search for “sadiq khan says part and parcel” is carried out on an iPad.
1.37pm – Google search for ‘Jeremy Corbyn’ is carried out on an iPad.
3.22pm–3.37pm – A number of Google searches for Tommy Robinson carried out on iPad.
3.31pm – A tweet by Tommy Robinson – “Where was the day of rage after the terrorist attacks. All I saw was lighting candles” – is viewed on an iPad.
3.37pm – Google search for “sadiq khan carry on as normal” is carried out on iPad.
7.30pm–9.30pm – Osborne goes to the Hollybush pub, where he composes a handwritten letter said to have been found in the van used in the attack and is accused of “preaching racial hatred” by another customer.

June 18
Osborne travels to London.

June 19
12.15am – Osborne drives van into a group of Muslims tending to a man who has fallen ill.

The Infowars article by loudmouth hate preacher, Paul Joseph Watson, that Osborne is referenced to have accessed.

There can be no doubt that Osborne was also accessing vast amounts of mainstream media whilst carrying out these searches. It is easy to just blame the far-right hate preachers here, but honestly, how much more extreme is Paul Joseph Watson than The Sun, or Mail in their coverage of Corbyn, terrorism, or Muslims?

How much more extreme are the sick and disturbing narratives parroted by the Britain First hate preachers, than those parroted by May in response to terrorism in which she, once again, tried to blame Corbyn and smear him as terrorist sympathiser and national security threat?

A very clear link has been shown here between far-right hate preachers and actual terrorism with leading figures, Tommy Robinson, Paul Golding, and Jayda Fransen all mentioned by name as being in contact one way or another with Osborne.

Why then are these people not being investigated for inciting or inspiring terror?

If it was an Islamic terrorist such clear links would almost certainly be investigated, likely leading to detentions and prosecutions under the terrorism act.

Theresa May has always been quick to stress the need to clamp down on internet freedom following Islamic terror attacks, after the London Bridge attack in June, May was quick to blame the internet, saying:

We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed

Adding:

Yet that is precisely what the internet and the big companies that provide internet-based services provide.

And declaring that:

We need to do everything we can at home to reduce the risks of extremism online.

Yet, oddly enough May and the right-wing media have been strangely silent when it comes to the kind of right-wing extremist propaganda that clearly helped to motivate, radicalize and inspire Osborne.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they are clearly part of the vile propaganda that does radicalise people and leads to such violent atrocities?

None of this is to say that the internet should be regulated by the nanny state, with May and co deciding what we can and can’t access, but rather this about the responsibility that the media, journalists, and above all else politicians should take for acts of terrorism, and the kind of language and information they put out there in doing so.

The right-wing press has become so vile and twisted over the years that much of it can be considered extremist hate preaching: and simply put propaganda to radicalize potential terrorists.

Yet, the mainstream media has not taken one shred of responsibility for this. Both they and the Tories spent their time and energy doing as much they could to smear Corbyn with a raft of ridiculous smears, endlessly repeating the doctrine that he is a threat to national security and a terrorist sympathizer who adored the IRA, and hates our country.

As Corbyn said, we must understand and tackle the root causes of terrorism above all else, but the power establishment, of course, does nothing but create endless distraction from those root causes.

Writing their own versions of reality that have become hate-filled fantasy lands which feul more and more terrorism, and thus creates more and more innocent victims.

The mainstream media is the source of radicalization we should really be worried about, and we should expect more from them, we should expect that their journalism isn’t likely to endanger people’s lives and that they should have a basic duty to balance and facts and some form sanity.

Whether left or right, the media and politicians must take responsibility for their actions.

Unless we force them to do so, it is impossible to imagine a world in which we can ever seriously tackle terrorist atrocities.

We can assume then, that the (anti) social media giant is also deleting accounts, posts, and so on, at the behest of the British Government as well (given the even greater authoritarian nature of our own state.)

Last week, the excellent ‘Crimes of Britain‘ (COB) Facebook page was removed for ‘violating terms of use’.

COB is dedicated to highlighting the many historical (not to mention current) crimes carried out by the British state and is thoroughly researched and well sourced—a valuable source of information on the various atrocities carried out by our government throughout modern history.

COB’s Facebook page was unflinchingly honest and brutal in their coverage of the colonialist and neocolonialist crimes of Britain across the globe. The only hate speech they praticed was a healthy hatred against the crimes of our state, you know, the atrocities we fund, pay for, and elect so-called leaders to carry out in our name.

Here is an example of their coverage from their still (thankfully) active Twitter account:

The page does noes take a particular left-right political stance, but rather covers the crimes of the British state simply for what they are: crimes.

Theresa May’s promoting and facilitating of terrorists in Libya in 2011 should be the biggest scandal of 2017 given the fact that one of these terrorists blew himself up in Manchester at a pop concert murdering children.

Recently, I have also been affected by Facebook’s clampdown on free speech for similar reasons….

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about the Harry & Markle wedding, and also covered Prince redhead’s previous form as a racist who, once upon a time, dressed in a Nazi outfit (as a joke, apparently).

To support the controversy that the article produced (sadly, an inevitability for such a post—even though the Harry-Nazi outfit scandal is well-documented), I posted the actual picture of him wearing the NAZI outfit onto Facebook itself in response to those who simply wouldn’t accept that Harry had worn the outfit.

The next day I was informed that Facebook had removed the picture of Harry wearing his Nazi outfit—the reason?

Quite who I was attacking here remains a mystery, other than Harry that is, of course.

The image was clearly posted to show Harry in a negative light (as that’s what this kind action deserves) not to promote Nazism or something (unless you think that’s what Harry was doing, of course).

This image has been widely publicised by both national and international news across the world: pretty much everybody has seen it and I would imagine all major outlets (including the BBC) have shown it numerous times.

Now, there is no doubt that this picture is offensive (it’s supposed to be—that’s the reason why I posted it, to prove that Harry has clear form when it comes to being offensive.)

However, that doesn’t mean it should be removed by the Facebook Ministry of Truth judges.

Why should they get to decide what is and isn’t offensive? And who does and doesn’t get to be offended?

As well as ignoring the context as to why it is offensive, and why I posted it in the first place?

Facebook is clearly under the influence of the state, and potentially vice versa as well.

Given this astoundingly huge profit and net worth, surely Facebook is in little need of massive state handouts?

Well, if money buys influence in politics (and I think we can all agree it does) then Facebook’s political censorship shows us quite categorically that there may well be more to these tax-payer handouts than just another scheme to make yet more money from us.

Facebook purports to be a free service, but this isn’t true: in reality, we sell ourselves and our lives to them and in return, we get to use the service: this is how they’ve made their money—and this has built the company’s success and grotesque wealth.

One of the web’s leading financial trading websites, Investopedia.com, sums it up best when explaining how Facebook makes so much money, they say that:

If you’re not paying for the product, the product is you. The real transaction here isn’t you receiving enjoyment in the form of a free temporary distraction created by a media company at great expense, but rather, that media company renting your eyeballs to its advertisers

Every minute of the day Facebook makes around $13,000 from us by selling our data and advertising back to us (that’s just the stuff we know about—they are a private company after all, so in reality, we have no idea what they are really doing with our data to make all this money.)

This website, called rather strangely, Happier, has produced a real time infographic that shows you how much money massive tech companies make from us every second of the day—here’s Facebook’s data for a whole 60 seconds:

The point is when we sign up for an account on Facebook we are making a deal with them: they have my private information and in return the service will help me to stay in touch with people, meet new people, share interests and hobbies, advertise my self, advertise my page, my website, etc and all without parting with a single penny.

That’s the tradeoff: you are the product but in exchange you get to use the service in multiple ways for your own ends.

All of that requires a certain level of freedom: that freedom is being erradicated by state power for its own ends. Without freedom to express on the platform the whole thing becomes completely pointless, in fact, it becomes hugely damaging to free speech itself.

There may not seem like major issues right now—but it is clear that this kind of censorship is becoming increasingly overt and authoritrian.

Facebook is becoming yet another tool used by the elites to silence the dissenting voices of the majority, as well as attempting to control their opinions, the news they receive, and the views they are exposed too.

The inevitible conclusion is that people will simple stop saying or posting anything that is deemed to be controversial in the eyes of Facebook and therefore the state.

That the state should be allowed to restrict public speech and action in this manner is more akin to Soviet Russia than an alleged democracy.

Alas–this is how censorship really works in our so-called freedom loving Western democracy: not under the threat of the Gulag or assassination, but under the imposing dominating reality of the corporate-state, working together to silence any dissent in a relentless bid to create the world they would like to see.

One that is free from any real challenge: where debates and controversy are heavily managed by pre-approved state-corporate authorities: so as to prevent any meaningful debate.

One where everybody talks about only the most mundane of issues in the belief that this is non-offensive free speech.

Once speech is censored, once knowledge and facts are simply written out then thought is going to be controlled.

If one cannot discuss honestly and factually, then how can your mind grow? How can your thoughts and opinions be clearly and honestly formed in any meaningful way?

The answer is they can’t—and that’s the whole point of this.

There is, no doubt, some cases where posts or pages should be removed and deleted (for instance, child pornography, animal abuse, etc) but the Crimes of Britain page certainly wasn’t one of those cases.

Nor was my Prince Harry post.

These are just factual statements about the world we live in: the offense they may cause is justified to make the points that we all need to pay attention too if we are to change things for the better.

Facebook for me is a love/hate relationship: on the one hand, I’ve used it to build a small audience and promote my work to people who otherwise likely be impossible to reach (all without spending a penny).

On the other hand, I am all too aware of the increasing censorship and the effect this has on my posts: who they reach, and what they see from me in the future, etc.

That’s the sad reality here.

Facebook is a platform built not by Forbes’ 3rd richest man in 2017, who is estimated to be worth $74.2B, Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, but by the people who use it the service: us.

As such it should be our voices that are heard: not the deceptive and damaging narratives endlessly parroted by our Ministry of Truth state overlords.

Thanks for reading—if you found this post through Facebook itself please let me know by leaving a comment as I’d be interested to see the kind of reach this article is actually getting, given the latest censorship.

And please help fight back against Facebook’s attack on independent alternative media and news by sharing this article and posts by other indy outlets—even if you don’t always like or always agree with the outlets themselves: it sure will piss off Facebook’s Ministry robots of divinity.

Perhaps, even more, unsurprising and rather telling about the state of the industry was the winners….

Get ready people this is likely to make your blood pressure increase by a factor of a gazzilion!

Last year, the BBC’s ever-intrepid political ‘journalist’, Laura Kuenssberg, won the Heineken sponsored journalist of the year award, in what was a clear testament to the dire state of the industry.

The fact she’s been in trouble with the BBC itself for misreporting on Corbyn, adding weight to the fact that giving her such an award was nothing short of an insult to journalism itself.

This year, the judges have perhaps gone one better: handing the award to none other than LBC Radio’s bloated right-wing, talking point mechanised windbag Nick Ferrari.

Partly for his outstandingly good work interviewing Dianne Abbott during the General Election (GE). For this achievement, he also received the award for Popular Journalism.

The Press Gazette—who hosted the event says:

The judges were impressed with the calm and methodical way he interviews politicians, most notably shadow home secretary Diane Abbott ahead of this year’s general election.

And:

The judges said: “Nick will be most remembered most this year for an interview with shadow home secretary Diane Abbott which proved to be a pivotal moment in the 2017 general election. Through calm and detailed questioning he created the ‘where were you’ moment of the election.

Adding:

The judges said: “Eschewing the hectoring style often associated with heavy-hitting political interviews, Nick Ferrari’s focus on the facts, ability to think on his feet and lightness of touch secured his status as a star performer during the 2017 election campaign. As well as his famous encounter with Diane Abbott he also secured headline-grabbing interviews with Theresa May and Tim Farron.

The headlines he grabbed certainly, the way he grabbed them though is genuinely grotesque.

Readers will, no doubt, remember the endless mocking—much of it clearly grounded in racism, mysognoy and the fact she’s representing the left—directed at Abbott over the course of the GE.

Abbott did have a series of what were relatively minor car crash interviews:

Alas, the media barely spoke about it—the fact that Hammond actually is the Chancellor and should know basic figures about public spending and investment better than anybody else in the country, compared to Abbott who was only acting as Shadow Home Secretary, shows you just how biased the media is. The fact that the industry thinks that Ferrari deserves an award for this kind of thing really tells you all you need to know.

In July this year, Abbott made it clear during a Parliamentary debate, that she suffers a daily torrent of horrendous racial abuse:

Exactly the kind of thing then, that Nick’s entire career is dedicated to, it seems.

However, Nick is far from a one trick pony: he also received the awards for his work surrounding a few other areas as the Gazette explains here:

In 2017 he launched the Guard Our Emergency Staff campaign which prompted a 100,000 signature petition and helped bring about the Assaults on Emergency Workers Bill.

As the Grenfell Fire still smoldered he interviewed former Chief Fire officer Ronnie King who revealed the government’s failure to act on safety recommendations following the Lakanal House fire in 2009. Nick Ferrari is quite simply the 2017 journalist of the year.

I wouldn’t call this outstanding journalism personally—would you? I mean it’s all pretty basic stuff, isn’t it? The most striking aspect of the Grenfell inferno was not so much the regulation, but the layers and layers and layers of endless and clear corruption behind the regulation and neglect. Aside from the other obvious underpinning factors such as Tory austerity, privatization, and the so-called regeneration project in the area.

The list of atrocities in the case of Grenfell frankly never ends….

The establishment: Ferrari’s award embodying this—always attempts to defend itself by claiming that they do some good work as in this case of Grenfell, as if that somehow makes up for the fact 90% of the time they are just spreading right-wing propaganda about immigrants, imperial war, disabled “benefit scroungers”, how evil and deluded the left is, etc, etc, etc…

It’s all well and good to point out some of the basic issues that caused the blaze after the fire, but what about the fact that residents had been warning about these factors for years and years and years and years? And were totally ignored by the mainstream media—both before and very shortly after the blaze?

That’s the real issue here, again, this shows you how chronically dysfunctional journalism has become.

Another award, this time for ‘politics’ went to none other than Channel 4’s Dispatches for their delightful, meaningful and groundbreaking undercover documentary on Momentum, Corbyn, and Labour:

Over a period of six months, Chanel 4’s undercover reporter attended meetings at Momentum’s headquarters in London uncovering new evidence of how it was being influenced by the hard left.

The judges said: “Of all this year’s entries the story this investigation uncovered was the most momentous for the future of British politics. The others might have been great scoops or great insights but they won’t have as much long-term impact as the undercover account of the transformation of a great political party.

Kind of astonishing on multiple levels: the first one being that the documentary was actually broadcast in 2016, so why they’ve awarded them this now, a year later, is really beyond me….

The documentary sparked an uproar at the time it was broadcast for multiple reasons—no need to go into them all again right now, suffice to say that it was yet another hackey attempt by the establishment to portray Corbyn supporters and Momentum members as a bunch of Stalinists zombies all hell-bent on taking over the Labour Party, and slaughtering Blairites in the process.

You’d think that such an amazing and now award-winning documentary would take pride of place on Channel 4’s On Demand website so that we can all view it again and again…However, strangely enough, I can’t actually find a copy of it anywhere, including C4’s website.

The documentary was so good, it seems, that C4 doesn’t want us to see it again!

Perhaps the last award that truly raised my, by now, highly elevated eyebrows was the one for Business, Finance, and Economics, this time sponsored by TSB, which went to that well-known giant of financial reporting expertise Bloombe…sorry I mean BuzzFeed (am I reading this right?) no, that’s what it says BUZZFEED.

This investigation revealed how Britain’s biggest taxpayer-owned bank deliberately killed or crippled thousands of businesses during the recession in order to add billions of pounds to its balance sheet. The judges said: “This was stunning work which made your stomach churn. It was a forensic investigation based on thousands of leaked documents brought to life through interviews with the victims of this scandal.

The award is all the more ironic as TSB was one of the banks bailed out by us during the financial crash—in fact, taxpayer money was used to buy a 43.4% stake in its parent company Lloyds Banking Group in 2009.

Honestly, what can you say? BuzzFeed…..financial, business, and economics expertise….let’s all just let that sink in for a moment shall we?

Not, the Financial Times (FT), or Bloomberg—which by the way actually have some of the best news, information, and interviews going—mainly because, unlike the mainstream media these specialist outfits actually trust their readers with the truth, as their readers are essentailly the business class: these people need the truth to make decisions, and as such there is a marked difference in the way the FT reports and the way the MSM does—highly recommend the FT if you want to find out what’s really going on the world.

There were some worthy winners on the night—as is always the case with these things—such as the one for ‘Specialist Journalism’ which went to Inside Housingfor their work highlighting the dangers of flammable cladding before Grenfell:

When flames tore through a tower block in Shepherd’s Bush in August 2016, Pete Apps was the only journalist who recognised the need to dig further – and in doing so uncovered a secret report that warned of the threat to tower blocks from external cladding weeks before the Grenfell disaster.

The judges said: “Simply outstanding investigative journalism covering one of the most shocking stories of our era. A strong understanding of traditional public interest value combined with the adoption of the latest technology in multi-media reporting.

However, for the most part, it is clear that any industry that decides Nick Ferrari is their best and brightest is clearly going through a crisis of epic proportions.

If journalism had anything to do with speaking truth to power in this day and age, then Ferrari wouldn’t have a job, let alone an award, and the C4 Documentary would’ve never made it past the pitch stage—that’s just a simple fact.

What these people are actually receiving awards for is, often times, the complete opposite to the central tenants on which the fourth estate is supposed to be built.

As Edmund Burke is famously reported to have said way back in the late 18th century, there’s:

Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all.

Hence the origin of the term journalists are so fond of: the fourth estate—well, they may be fond of the term, but totally fail to understand its meaning, it seems.

These journalists are the ones who speak and amplify the lies of the powerful and distort the truth to the powerless masses, to protect the powerful.

And this is where the whole thing gets really disturbing: unlike the paid-up and self-aware propagandists of the past—whether they be Goebbels for the Nazis or those of so-called communists regimes such as China, or former Soviet Russia—unlike those people, these people really do believe they are speaking truth to power: they really do believe their own hype, and self-righteousness.

They have all absorbed the doctrine that they are the fourth estate—a noble truth-seeking pillar of objective justice—self-justifying because occasionally they do some good, noble and impressive work.

In fact, any mainstream journalists who I’ve ever actually dealt with—I must admit this hasn’t happened often—have always been completely deluded. It’s almost painful talking to them—they simply don’t seem to understand the world they’re supposed to be reporting on.

They have no sense of history, nor even basic morals—they have no real sense of justice, they have no interest in listening to victims of injustice, of helping them. They have no interest in any of these basic things: they are empty and dead inside—yet somehow, through indoctrination, I assume, they all believe the very opposite of themselves.

The examples of just how woefully out of touch the industry is with the public have become so glaringly obvious that is beyond embarrassing at this point in time.

The most recent example, perhaps, being the GE itself. At the beginning, as May called the snap GE the media literally called it a Tory landslide right there and then:

Comparing my headlines to those of the mainstream media over the course of the GE….

This hatred of the centrist status quo has recently expressed itself in various forms across the west: from Brexit to Sander’s and Trump in the US to the unexpected rise of the socialist candidate in the upcoming French elections, we are seeing the (supposedly) unpredictable destruction of centrist politics — it may not seem like it right now, but this state of affairs is the new normal — and may well lead to the election of Corbyn as PM. This seems unthinkable — a glance at any of the polls tells you that it is — yet given the crumbling of the establishment — a crumbling which the political elites themselves fail to acknowledge the existence of — we should all seriously start to think about the “unthinkable.”

For once the unthinkable isn’t a bad thing, it actually offers some hope and optimism for the future.

And:

Whether or not Corbyn wins the fundamental nature of centrist politics is falling apart — that doesn’t stop just if Corbyn loses the next general election. Everywhere we look we see the same thing happening. This makes the current political climate unpredictable, not just now, but well into the future.

The future is in reality in the hands not of the baby boomers, or the gray vote much relied on by the Tories to win — but in the hands of the young: those of us who have grown up entirely under the neo-liberal system, those who want something more than this eternal misery.

We are also the ones leading the fightback against the neo-liberal assault — from Sander’s supporters in the US, to Corbyn’s here: it is no accident that these old school new deal style socialists gain the support of the young: it’s the first time in our lives that anybody has actually challenged the neo-liberal orthodoxy.

Therefore it follows that eventually, our generation will take over, and therefore we have the greatest chance of actually ending this nightmare. Whether it be through Corbyn, or means yet to be realized.

For now though, let’s all focus on the fight ahead — focus on the issues that are tearing this country apart, and make it clear that we want more than the scraps and torment the Tories give us year after year.

The sad thing is we’ve been conditioned into believing there is no alternative — this isn’t true, nor was it ever, and now is the chance to demonstrate that.

Remember the mainstream media continued to insist that May would decimate Corbyn in a landslide right up until the exit polling on the night of the election.

More comparisons between my headlines and the MSMs all taken from the same time.

They were also wrong about Trump in the same way (I didn’t make a prediction about Trump, although I did believe the establishment was underestimating the man.)

I’m not alone in making these points, nor the ones about Corbyn, Brexit etc, far from it, in fact, many people outside of the mainstream spectrum said exactly the same kinds of things, using the same kinds of evidence to support their points.

I doubt that a single one of the 400 industry professionals in attendance at this swanky award show even gave Corbyn a fighting chance—let alone any of those who won awards.

What does that say about journalism in this country?

It tells you that mainstream journalism is dead—and the journalists themselves are the ones with masses of blood on their hands.

In an odd way, the bloated and old LBC windbag who fuels the flames of racism and bigotry is perfectly representative of the state of journalism in this country: what his award symbolizes though is not a breathtaking success, but a series abject depressing, wilful, and systemic failures.

Jeremy Corbyn today gave an uplifting and deeply thought-provoking speech at the United Nation’s (UN) Geneva Headquaters: unsurprisingly and very tellingly the mainstream media (MSM) have so far basically ignored it.

Topics covered include tax evasion, the destruction caused by neoliberalism, climate destruction, Trump, May’s threat to human rights, imperial war, the loss of the use of diplomacy in favor of such war and therefore the current meaninglessness of international law (among many other things).

As the MSM has basically ignored it, I include here the full video and transcript.

And let me give a special thanks to the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development.

Your work gives an important platform to marginalised voices for social justice to challenge policy makers and campaign for change.

I welcome pressure both on my party the British Labour Party and on my leadership to put social justice front and centre stage in everything we do.

So thank you for inviting me to speak here in this historic setting at the Palais des Nations in Geneva a city that has been a place of refuge and philosophy since the time of Rousseau.

The headquarters before the Second World War of the ill-fated League of Nations, which now houses the United Nations.

It’s a particular privilege to be speaking here because the constitution of our party includes a commitment to support the United Nations. A promise “to secure peace, freedom, democracy, economic security and environmental protection for all”.

She has been a remarkable campaigner and a great asset to the international movement for human rights.

And lastly let me thank you all for being here today.

I would like to use this opportunity in the run- up to International Human Rights Day to focus on the greatest threats to our common humanity.

And why states need to throw their weight behind genuine international cooperation and human rights both individual and collective, social and economic, as well as legal and constitutional at home and abroad if we are to meet and overcome those threats.

My own country is at a crossroads. The decision by the British people to leave the European Union in last year’s referendum means we have to rethink our role in the world.

Some want to use Brexit to turn Britain in on itself, rejecting the outside world, viewing everyone as a feared competitor.

Others want to use Brexit to put rocket boosters under our current economic system’s insecurities and inequalities, turning Britain into a deregulated corporate tax haven, with low wages, limited rights, and cut-price public services in a destructive race to the bottom.

My party stands for a completely different future when we leave the EU, drawing on the best internationalist traditions of the labour movement and our country.

We want to see close and cooperative relationships with our European neighbours, outside the EU, based on solidarity as well as mutual benefit and fair trade, along with a wider proactive internationalism across the globe.

We are proud that Britain was an original signatory to the European Convention of Human Rights and our 1998 Human Rights Act enshrined it in our law.

So Labour will continue to work with other European states and progressive parties and movements, through the Council of Europe to ensure our country and others uphold our international obligations.

Just as the work of the UN Human Rights Council helps to ensure countries like ours live up to our commitments, such as on disability rights, where this year’s report found us to be failing.

International cooperation, solidarity, collective action are the values we are determined to project in our foreign policy.

Those values will inform everything the next Labour government does on the world stage, using diplomacy to expand a progressive, rules-based international system, which provides justice and security for all.

They must be genuinely universal and apply to the strong as much as the weak if they are to command global support and confidence.

They cannot be used to discipline the weak, while the strong do as they please, or they will be discredited as a tool of power, not justice.

That’s why we must ensure that the powerful uphold and respect international rules and international law.

If we don’t, the ideals of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 will remain an aspiration, rather than a reality and international rules will be seen as a pick and mix menu for the global powers that call the international shots.

Most urgently we must work with other countries to advance the cause of human rights, to confront the four greatest and interconnected threats facing our common humanity.

First, the growing concentration of unaccountable wealth and power in the hands of a tiny corporate elite, a system many call neoliberalism, which has sharply increased inequality, marginalisation, insecurity and anger across the world.

Second, climate change, which is creating instability, fuelling conflict across the world and threatening all our futures.

And finally, the use of unilateral military action and intervention, rather than diplomacy and negotiation, to resolve disputes and change governments.

The dominant global economic system is broken.

It is producing a world where a wealthy few control 90 percent of global resources.

Of growing insecurity and grotesque levels of inequality within and between nations, where more than 100 billion dollars a year are estimated to be lost to developing countries from corporate tax avoidance.

Where $1 trillion dollars a year are sucked out of the Global South through illicit financial flows.

This is a global scandal.

The most powerful international corporations must not be allowed to continue to dictate how and for whom our world is run.

Thirty years after structural adjustment programmes first ravaged so much of the world, and a decade after the financial crash of 2008, the neoliberal orthodoxy that delivered them is breaking down.

This moment, a crisis of confidence in a bankrupt economic system and social order, presents us with a once in a generation opportunity to build a new economic and social consensus which puts the interests of the majority first.

But the crumbling of the global elite’s system and their prerogative to call the shots unchallenged has led some politicians to stoke fear and division. And deride international cooperation as national capitulation.

President Trump’s disgraceful Muslim ban and his anti-Mexican rhetoric have fuelled racist incitement and misogyny and shift the focus away from what his Wall Street-dominated administration is actually doing.

In Britain, where wages have actually fallen for most people over the last decade as the corporations and the richest have been handed billions in tax cuts, our Prime Minister has followed a less extreme approach but one that also aims to divert attention from her Government’s failures and real agenda.

She threatens to scrap the Human Rights Act, which guarantees all of our people’s civil and political rights and has actually benefited everyone in our country. And she has insisted “if you believe you’re a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere”.

There is an alternative to this damaging and bankrupt order. The world’s largest corporations and banks cannot be left to write the rules and rig the system for themselves.

The world’s economy can and must deliver for the common good and the majority of its people. But that is going to demand real and fundamental structural change on an international level.

The UN has a pivotal role to play, in advancing a new consensus and common ground based on solidarity, respect for human rights and international regulation and cooperation.

That includes as a platform for democratic leaders to speak truth about unaccountable power.

One such moment took place on 4 December 1972, when President Salvador Allende of Chile, elected despite huge opposition and US interference, took the rostrum of the UN General Assembly in New York.

He called for global action against the threat from transnational corporations, that do not answer to any state, any parliament or any organisation representing the common interest.

Nine months later, Allende was killed in General Augusto Pinochet’s coup, which ushered in a brutal 17-year dictatorship and turned Chile into a laboratory of free market fundamentalism.

But 44 years on, all over the world people are standing up and saying enough to the unchained power of multinational companies to dodge taxes, grab land and resources on the cheap and rip the heart out of workforces and communities.

That’s why I make the commitment to you today that the next Labour government in Britain will actively support the efforts of the UN Human Rights Council to create a legally binding treaty to regulate transnational corporations under international human rights law.

Genuine corporate accountability must apply to all of the activities of their subsidiaries and suppliers.

Impunity for corporations that violate human rights or wreck our environment, as in the mineral-driven conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, must be brought to an end.

For too long, development has been driven by the unfounded dogma that unfettered markets and unaccountable multinational companies are the key to solving global problems.

So under the next Labour Government the Department for International Development will have the twin mission of not only eradicating poverty but also reducing inequality across the world.

To achieve this goal we must act against the global scandal of tax dodging and trade mis-invoicing – robbing developing countries and draining resources from our own public services.

In Africa alone an estimated 35 billion dollars is lost each year to tax dodging, and 50 billion to illicit financial flows, vastly exceeding the 30 billion dollars that enters the continent as aid.

As the Paradise and Panama Papers have shown the super-rich and the powerful can’t be trusted to regulate themselves.

Multinational companies must be required to undertake country-by-country reporting, while countries in the Global South need support now to keep hold of the billions being stolen from their people.

So the next Labour government will seek to work with tax authorities in developing countries, as Zambia has with NORAD – the Norwegian aid agency – to help them stop the looting.

Tomorrow is International Anti-Corruption Day. Corruption isn’t something that happens ‘over there’. Our government has played a central role in enabling the corruption that undermines democracy and violates human rights. It is a global issue that requires a global response.

When people are kept in poverty, while politicians funnel public funds into tax havens, that is corruption, and a Labour government will act decisively on tax havens: introducing strict standards of transparency for crown dependencies and overseas territories including a public register of owners, directors, major shareholders and beneficial owners … for all companies and trusts.

Climate change is the second great threat to our common humanity. Our planet is in jeopardy. Global warming is undeniable; the number of natural disasters has quadrupled since 1970.

Hurricanes like the ones that recently hit the Caribbean are bigger because they are absorbing moisture from warmer seas.

It is climate change that is warming the seas, mainly caused by emissions from the world’s richer countries.

And yet the least polluting countries, more often than not the developing nations, are at the sharp end of the havoc climate change unleashes – with environmental damage fuelling food insecurity and social dislocation.

We must stand with them in solidarity. Two months ago, I promised the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, that I would use this platform to make this message clear.

The international community must mobilise resources and the world’s biggest polluters shoulder the biggest burden.

So I ask governments in the most polluting countries, including in the UK:

First, to expand their capacity to respond to disasters around the world. Our armed forces, some of the best trained and most highly skilled in the world, should be allowed to use their experience to respond to humanitarian emergencies. Italy is among those leading the way with its navy becoming a more versatile and multi-role force.

Second, to factor the costs of environmental degradation into financial forecasting as Labour has pledged to do with Britain’s Office of Budget Responsibility.

And finally, take serious and urgent steps on debt relief and cancellation.
We need to act as an international community against the injustice of countries trying to recover from climate crises they did not create while struggling to repay international debts.

It’s worth remembering the words of Thomas Sankara, President of Burkina Faso, delivered to the Organisation of African Unity in 1987 a few months before he too was assassinated in a coup.

“The debt cannot be repaid“ he said, “first because if we don’t repay lenders will not die. But if we repay… we are going to die.”

The growing climate crisis exacerbates the already unparalleled numbers of people escaping conflict and desperation.

There are now more refugees and displaced people around the world than at any time since the Second World War.

Refugees are people like us.

But unlike us they have been forced by violence, persecution and climate chaos to flee their homes.

One of the biggest moral tests of our time is how we live up to the spirit and letter of the 1951 Refugee Convention.

Its core principle was simple: to protect refugees.

Yet ten countries, which account for just 2.5 percent of the global economy, are hosting more than half the world’s refugees.

It is time for the world’s richer countries to step up and show our common humanity.

Failure means millions of Syrians internally displaced within their destroyed homeland or refugees outside it. Rohingya refugees returned to Myanmar without guarantees of citizenship or protection from state violence and refugees held in indefinite detention in camps unfit for human habitation as in Papua New Guinea or Nauru. And African refugees sold into slavery in war-ravaged Libya.

This reality should offend our sense of humanity and human solidarity.

European countries can, and must, do more as the death rate of migrants and refugees crossing the Mediterranean continues to rise.

And we need to take more effective action against human traffickers.

But let us be clear: the long-term answer is genuine international cooperation based on human rights, which confronts the root causes of conflict, persecution and inequality.

I’ve spent most of my life, with many others, making the case for diplomacy and dialogue… over war and conflict, often in the face of hostility.

But I remain convinced that is the only way to deliver genuine and lasting security for all.

And even after the disastrous invasions and occupations of recent years there is again renewed pressure to opt for military force, America First or Empire 2.0 as the path to global security.

I know the people of Britain are neither insensitive to the sufferings of others nor blind to the impact and blowback from our country’s reckless foreign wars.

Regime change wars, invasions, interventions and occupations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and Somalia have failed on their own terms, devastated the countries and regions and made Britain and the world a more dangerous place.
And while the UK government champions some human rights issues on others it is silent, if not complicit, in their violation.

Too many have turned a wilfully blind eye to the flagrant and large-scale human rights abuses now taking place in Yemen, fuelled by arms sales to Saudi Arabia worth billions of pounds.

The see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil approach undermines our credibility and ability to act over other human rights abuses.

Total British government aid to Yemen last year was under £150 million – less than the profits made by British arms companies selling weapons to Saudi Arabia. What does that say about our country’s priorities, or our government’s role in the humanitarian disaster now gripping Yemen?

Our credibility to speak out against the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims is severely undermined when the British Government has been providing support to Myanmar’s military.

And our Governments pay lip service to a comprehensive settlement and two state solution to the Israel- Palestine conflict but do nothing to use the leverage they have to end the oppression and dispossession of the Palestinian people.

70 years after the UN General Assembly voted to create a Palestinian state alongside what would become Israel, and half a century since Israel occupied the whole of historic Palestine, they should take a lead from Israeli peace campaigners such as Gush Shalom and Peace Now and demand an end to the multiple human rights abuses Palestinians face on a daily basis. The continued occupation and illegal settlements are violations of international law and are a barrier to peace.

The US president’s announcement that his administration will recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, including occupied Palestinian territory, is a threat to peace that has rightly been met with overwhelming international condemnation.

The decision is not only reckless and provocative – it risks setting back any prospect of a political settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

President Trump’s speech at the UN General Assembly in September signalled a wider threat to peace. His attack on multilateralism, human rights and international law should deeply trouble us all.

And this is no time to reject the Iran Nuclear Deal, a significant achievement agreed between Iran and a group of world power to reduce tensions.

That threatens not just the Middle East but also the Korean Peninsula. What incentives are there for Pyongyang to believe disarmament will bring benefits when the US dumps its nuclear agreement with Tehran?

Trump and Kim Jong-un threaten a terrifying nuclear confrontation with their absurd and bellicose insults.

In common with almost the whole of humanity, I say to the two leaders: this is not a game, step back from the brink now.

It is a commonplace that war and violence do not solve the world’s problems. Violence breeds violence. In 2016 nearly three quarters of all deaths from terrorism were in five states; Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Nigeria and Somalia.

So let us stand up for the victims of war and terrorism and make international justice a reality.

And demand that the biggest arms exporters ensure all arms exports are consistent, not legally, but with their moral obligations too.

That means no more arms export licences when there is a clear risk that they will be used to commit human rights abuses or crimes against humanity.

The UK is one of the world’s largest arms exporters so we must live up to our international obligations while we explore ways to convert arms production into other socially useful, high-skill, high-tech industry.

Which is why I welcome the recent bipartisan U.S. House of Representatives resolution which does two unprecedented things.

First, it acknowledges the U.S. role in the destruction of Yemen, including the mid-air refuelling of the Saudi-led coalition planes essential to their bombing campaign and helping in selecting targets.

Second, it makes plain that Congress has not authorised this military involvement.

Yemen is a desperate humanitarian catastrophe with the worst cholera outbreak in history.

The weight of international community opinion needs to be brought to bear on those supporting Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, including Theresa May’s Government, to meet our legal and moral obligations on arms sales and to negotiate an urgent ceasefire and settlement of this devastating conflict.

If we’re serious about supporting peace we must strengthen international cooperation and peacekeeping. Britain has an important role to play after failing to contribute significant troop numbers in recent years.

We are determined to seize the opportunity to be a force for good in peacekeeping, diplomacy and support for human rights.

Labour is committed to invest in our diplomatic capabilities and consular services and we will reintroduce human rights advisers in our embassies around the world.

Human rights and justice will be at the heart of our foreign policy along with a commitment to support the United Nations.

The UN provides a unique platform for international cooperation and action. And to be effective, we need member states to get behind the reform agenda set out by Secretary General Guterres.

The world demands the UN Security Council responds, becomes more representative and plays the role it was set up to on peace and security.

We can live in a more peaceful world. The desire to help create a better life for all burns within us.

Governments, civil society, social movements and international organisations can all help realise that goal.

We need to redouble our efforts to create a global rules based system that applies to all and works for the many, not the few.

No more bomb first and think and talk later.

No more double standards in foreign policy.

No more scapegoating of global institutions for the sake of scoring political points at home.

Instead: solidarity, calm leadership and cooperation. Together we can:

Build a new social and economic system with human rights and justice at its core.

Deliver climate justice and a better way to live together on this planet.

Recognise the humanity of refugees and offer them a place of safety.

Work for peace, security and understanding.

The survival of our common humanity requires nothing less.

We need to recognise and pay tribute to human rights defenders the world over, putting their lives on the line for others – our voice must be their voice.

The wedding is set to cost taxpayers at least £22 million, and that’s just for police and security to protect the couple. A price definitely worth paying just for the sheer joy of it all, I am sure you are all thinking.

Yet, it seems despite the wall to wall propaganda and sycophancy trumpeted by the mainstream media, the majority of the country couldn’t care less.

In fact, according to a recent YouGov poll, 52% of Brits say they are “indifferent” to the latest Royal blowout, while 4% say they are “disappointed” and 6% of the country say they “don’t know” how to feel about it.

However, that leaves 39% of the country – almost 4 in 10 – saying they are pleased with the news.

To be fair, whether or not you’re ecstatic or angry about the whole bloated charade makes no real difference: you’ll still have no choice but to foot the bill for the whole thing anyway.

Unsurprisingly, it was older Tory voters who showed the greatest blind enthusiasm:

Although, even then only 48% of Tory voters were ‘pleased’, leaving quite a large number: 46% who couldn’t care less.

Much has been made of the fact that Markle is mixed-race by the media – arguably one of the reasons for many Tory voters’ disinterest.

No doubt, this was one the key reasons she was chosen by Royal’s incredibly strong public relations (PR) team as they are trying to rebrand the family by increasingly focusing on the younger members.

It may also have something to do with the fact that Harry’s overt racism — seen here when he called a fellow serviceman who is Asian:

our little Paki friend

And refers to another officer as a “rag-head” — is something the Royal’s PR machine would like us all to forget.

So the PR really does pay off here: this is the reason for the endless media focus on the younger ones.

Desperately they try to make the archaic institution of monarchy seem like it’s some sort of modern and hip thing so that people keep supporting it.

Trying to rebrand the Queen as progressive is just too much of a stretch. The younger ones, on the other hand, well slap on some stuff about mental health issues, make them look like a normal-ish family, add in a mixed race marriage and hey ho! Now it’s progressive and modern!

However, for Republicans there are some reasons to be optomistic: polling also shows that the majority of Brits would like the Royal family to be slimmed down vastly:

Even Harry was borderline on the question of whether or not these millionaire scroungers should receive our money.

So for those who think we shouldn’t have a Monarchy in the first place, we should probably start with the fact that the public agrees with us at least partly, and work from there.

Camilla and Charles’ comically low popularity provides yet more opportunity to illustrate how unfair Monarchy is in a day and age of alleged democracy and supposed meritocracy.

We might like to mock the US for electing Trump, but say what you want about the US — at least their head of state is democratically (well sort off) elected by the people (again sort off).

The reality is the Monarchy makes us an international laughing stock — literally, we submit through our own public opinion polls to archaic belief in Kings and Queens and Princes, Dukes and Princesses, long after the time when most countries long abandoned such nonsense.

The argument that the Monarchy is good for the economy is such a weak one it barely requires adult debate, alas though, I’m sure some will use this defense in all sincerity.

Let’s just think about this for a quick second, shall we? Tourists come to look a bunch of buildings built on the blood and wealth by the enslaved of the nation and in fact the world: they don’t actually come to look at the Queen — perhaps if she was performing some sort of mildly entertaining street performance style act outside Buck house on the regular then this line of defense would make sense. But she doesn’t — she just hides in one of her many mansions keeping hundreds of rooms to herself and her family.

If she was doing something useful, like I don’t know, cleaning my toilet, then perhaps we could justify the expense of the Royals.

How about that as a compromise? Let’s start an app like Uber where you can just order the Queen to come and fucking earn her money, just like everybody else — need your toilet cleaning? Need someone to mow your lawn?

You have to make sure the tasks are relatively low skilled, as obviously, the Queen has no actual skill to sell through our beloved capitalist markets.

In the same way that millions of tourists still visit the King’s former palace of Versailles in France, long after they improved the country by ridding themselves of Monarchy, I suspect the same would happen here: the tourists would still come — alas, no argument beyond implementing stringent class divides on us really exists for Monarchy — a 6-year-old of average intelligence could tell you that.

On Versailles Wikipedia tells us that:

The Palace of Versailles (French: Château de Versailles), or simply Versailles is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. It is now open as a museum and is a very popular tourist attraction.

There you have it — a museum and tourist attraction based on Royalty, long after the Royals have been ousted.

What this and Monarchy in general really boils down to is who is important and who matters in a society: some lives are worth millions, the majority of lives though, they are worth nothing at all.

That’s the question YouGov should really ask the people of this country: would you rather £22 million went towards child poverty or towards a bunch of tax avoiding millionaires who have done nothing to earn their fabulous wealth?

Given the results of this latest poll, I think we can all guess the answer.